Summer Glau

In Friday’s panel for the Syfy show Alphas, executive producer Ira Steven Behr announced the names of a few upcoming guest stars that genre fans should know, including Summer Glau (Firefly, The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood, Sarah Connor) and Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman).

Behr didn’t go into details about the characters they’d be playing, but he did say that he’d just seen Glau’s episode and that she’s "terrific" in it. Behr has a history with most of these actors, having worked with Spiner on Next Gen and with Glau and Dillahunt on The 4400.

Behr was joined on the panel by show co-creator Zak Penn (X-Men) and star David Strathairn. Penn, who wrote X-Men: The Last Stand and Incredible Hulk, is no stranger to stories about people with special abilities. But this time he set out to create a story that was much more realistic.

"The X-Men weren’t fighting crime, they were protecting themselves," he said. "I wouldn’t fight crime if I had powers. It’s far from reality. You need to get paid. You need to have a job and make money. If you had these abilities and went to work for the government, you’d want to know, ’What are my hours? What are my responsibilities? Do I get dental?’"

The show has been compared to X-Files and Heroes, but Penn said he wanted to stay away from a heavily serialized story. "The show’s strength is a living, breathing story about these people," he said. "Episodes are self contained. There’s a beginning, middle and end. It doesn’t get stuck in a repetitive mode."

But he doesn’t want to make the show about the "Alpha of the week," either. Instead, Alphas will focus on the characters and their relationships. There will even be episodes where there’s no Alpha to chase at all. For Penn, it’s about generating a compelling story from a character point of view.

Penn further teased that the writers have plans for expanding the abilities of the team, and that we’ll start seeing that in just a few episodes. It will be tough to keep a balance on the cutting edge, and as the show progresses, that balance will become more precarious, he explained.

Viewers can also look for some answers to the underlying mystery of the Red Flag organization as the writers build out the universe of the show. "The conspiracy will deepen," he promised. "There’s no question that there’s a lot more going on. I think you’ll find out in about 10 days what’s going on with the mythology of the show."